Showcase Dresden:
Anti-Americanism and Historical Memory in Germany
[Originally written February 14, 2005.]
I came to Dresden, about as deep inside the former Communist East Germany as one can go, to see what promised to be a major demonstration. Sunday, February 13th 2005 was the 60th anniversary of the Allied firebombing of the city. Tens of thousands of demonstrators were expected to appear to commemorate one of the most infamous incidents in the history of modern warfare. Others came to protest. Others came to instigate. Others came to forget. In the night of the 13th and in daylight on the 14th, 1945, British and American planes devastated with hundreds of thousands of incendiaries and high-explosive bombs most of Dresden’s historic center, built up over centuries as the capital of the Wettin dynasty’s prosperous joint kingdom, which at its height, in the middle 18th century, included both Saxony and Poland. The city’s baroque Altstadt, renowned at the time for its sprawling beauty, was reduced to a rubble field, thousands upon thousands of its citizens buried and burned alive. So it goes.
It is very often that one hears that the Allied attack on Dresden served no conceivable military purpose. Dresden was by no means one of the Reich’s major industrial centers; most of these were to be found in the Ruhr valley, and already lay in ruins or even under Allied control by the time Dresden burned. Indeed, many later argued, the war was already over in all but name. The Red Army was already at the gates of Dresden, having shortly before occupied nearby Silesia, driving hundreds of thousands of ethnic German refugees before them. It is generally assumed that most of these found their way through Dresden, and many of them were surely among the later dead unearthed in mid-February 1945.
But was Dresden so innocent, a city of no military importance? Dresden did possess a reasonably large industrial base, virtually all of which had been converted for military production and taken over by the German Army by the time of the attack. The city was also a major transportation hub, through which not only despairing refugees but also troops and war materiel en route to the Eastern Front or fleeing from Stalin’s vengeful army would be sure to pass. It goes without saying that such assertions are unpopular in Dresden to this day.
Was the war already over? Scarcely six weeks before the attack, the Western Allies were still reeling from Hitler’s final, Pyrrhic offensive of the war. On December 16th, 1944, massive German armored spearheads had penetrated American lines in the Ardennes forest in central Luxembourg and southern Belgium. The ensuing “Battle of the Bulge” soon became the largest land engagement in the history of the United States, resulting in approximately as many American troops killed and wounded in two weeks as were killed in the entire Vietnam War. Combine this with Stalin’s personal request at Yalta that the Allied air forces be employed as long-range artillery in support of the final stages of the Soviet thrust towards Berlin, and it becomes evident that Dresden’s gruesome fate, according to the amoral logic of total war, was sealed.
To make the past even more difficult to deal with, the Cold War led to the attack becoming a propaganda centrepiece and caused massive fluctuations in the estimates of the dead. The East German government made cynical use of Dresden’s fate, citing the experience as only typical of the tactics of American imperialist warmongers, being repeated with reckless disregard for humanity, above all in the schmutziger Krieg—dirty war—in Vietnam. The blame was placed, at different times, on Truman while he was still President (even though FDR was still alive at the time of the attack), and later on Eisenhower when he became Commander-in-Chief. Within twenty years of the attack, “official” estimates of the body count changed from 25,000, to over 300,000, then back to 35,000, when the Communists decided that they didn’t want to tell their subjects that conventional weapons could kill more than atomic weapons did at Hiroshima. After all, the threat that the American tyrants would start a nuclear war was more important to East German (i.e. Soviet) propaganda.
Whether as a symbol of the American lust for war (despite the fact that the true firestorm itself was unleashed by the Royal Air Force) or as a call for peace, the German Democratic Republic left the ruins of the 18th century Frauenkirche—the Church of Our Lady—in the pile of rubble it collapsed into following the bombing. So it remained from 1945 until after the reunification of Germany. In the past decade, however, as the result of a project costing nearly 60 million Euro, the Church stands again. The cries that Dresden was trying to wipe away its past—not only the Third Reich but also four decades of Socialism—resound to this day. The Frauenkirche itself represents not so much the rebirth of historic Dresden as it does the central question of Germany’s politicized past. Can tears be shed for the women, children, and elderly smashed by the Allies’ response to Germany’s bid for control of Europe without marginalizing the Germans’ own innumerable victims? Even if it can be done, should it?
It was in the cauldron of these deep-seated and divisive questions that I found myself last Sunday. The Dresden Police had announced that they expected 7000 neo-Nazis to appear to mourn the German victims of the “Allied Bomb Holocaust.” Another ten or so thousand would descend on the city, summoned by every major left-wing party of Germany, to protest the radical Right presence. The Dresdners themselves, as well as thousands of others from all over Germany, church leaders, and assorted notables from Germany’s former rival nations would take part in official ceremonies expected to stretch well into the small hours of the 14th. The traditional candlelight vigil in front of the Semper Opera, known for attracting tens of thousands, is planned for after nightfall. Riot police have been brought in from all over Saxony. From the beginning it is clear that the city is essentially under martial law. And then there were the people I came with.
They call themselves “Antifa”—anti-Fascists. Among them are those who take their opposition to the radical Right even further, proudly announcing their identity as “anti-Deutschen.” They are a rather diverse grouping of students and other leftists from all over Germany. Most are under thirty. Because of a sudden and unforeseen illness, my friend in Leipzig is unable to accompany me. As a result, I am with people I have never met, and will probably never see again. So it goes.
Shortly after my arrival in Dresden, I find myself at a Kundgebung—the opening address of a day of counter-protest against the Nazi presence. The central podium is bedecked with messages that one only informed by the American media might hardly expect to find in Europe, especially not in Germany. “Attack the anti-American consensus!” “Solidarity with Israel.”
Among the five or so hundred demonstrators assembled before the new synagogue—the old one was burned by the Dresdners themselves on the Night of Broken Glass in 1938—several flags flutter in the relatively strong wind. The Hammer and Sickle is one of them. So is the battle flag of the Royal Air Force. So is Old Glory. For these people, the Allies were unquestionably liberators, completely righteous and justified in whatever means were necessary to smash Fascism. Someone had explained to me that some German leftists support America and Israel because they believe that anti-Americanism is most often fuelled by anti-Zionism, which is in turn most often only the same old anti-Semitism with a different name. For them, there might have been arguments against Zionism, but Auschwitz proved them all wrong. Never again Germany. No tears for Krauts, they chant, in English.
As I listen to a speech about what to do if I get beat up by the police, thinking “What have I got myself into?”, a sudden and furious roar tears through the words coming from the loudspeaker. A pair of skinheads had had the bad luck of finding themselves in the wrong part of town, and while trying to find their own ilk on foot, they happened upon our demonstration. Within seconds, probably a hundred of the more “spirited” among us tore off down the street after the two of them. Within seconds, they disappeared down a side street. A few seconds more and they were joined by a speeding procession of police vans, each filled to bursting with decidedly unhumorous looking armored police. I don’t know what happened. Sirens, phalanxes of riot police running at full sprint and ambulances roaring by proved to be a basic part of Dresden’s atmosphere that chilly afternoon.
Shortly, the voice on the loudspeaker wishes us good luck, and the crowd sets off together. Within five minutes walk we find ourselves on the Altmarkt—the Old Market—, where the SS had burned thousands of bodies in the wake of the 1945 attack. Another roar tears through the crowd. Suddenly I am running, but I don’t know where to. One of my compatriots tells me we should wait where we are. He wants a cheeseburger. He says there will be plenty of action later. He was right.
Within a few minutes, the anti-Fascist mob reappears from a different direction than they had disappeared to. A large white charter bus appears in front of us. “It’s full of Faschos!” my new friend shouts. Another roar. People come running from all directions. Suddenly, trash cans start hurdling through the air, striking the side of the bus and spilling their contents all over the street. The Nazis inside try to remain cool. Some of them can’t, and they start yelling at us through the glass. The glass silently restrains their bullshit. It was at this moment that I looked to my left, where I saw a twentysomething German pull something out of his backpack and unfurl it. He holds the flag of Israel wide across his chest, displaying it to the Nazis in the bus. Then the battle-cry, shouted to the point of straining and soon joined by many nearby. “LANG…LEBE…IS-RA-EL!” Long live Israel. Given the grim historical context, something about what was happening before me—fear, grief, guilt, and hate—is simply impossible to explain. Although I could attempt to impose words on it, I will simply say that I will never forget the way I felt at this moment.
It is not long before the police arrive. They line up in front of the bus. They charge at us, and we take to flight across the Altmarkt. It was only the first such occurrence of the day. Though many of the Antifa later complained that the police spent the entire day protecting the Nazis, it is clear that they were there only to prevent violence of any kind. It is also clear that were they not there in such great numbers there surely would have been violence. Skinheads do not seem to me to be the most likely people to react magnanimously when struck with flying beer bottles and trash.
From there I followed as my compatriots tried to find a way to where the Nazi march would begin. Not that they didn’t know where it was, just that the police proved quite adept at spotting people likely to hurl instigative epithets—or solid objects—at the Nazis. The bizarre, seemingly almost Brownian, fluctuations of police barricades were a constant feature. One might find a way blocked at the first attempt, then hear by word of mouth fifteen minutes later that the "Bullen"—the equivalent of "pigs"—had mysteriously disappeared. We could hear vague, angry-sounding gibberish being shouted over a loudspeaker, but it took us a while to find an open route. We eventually found ourselves on the terrace of the Zwinger, a baroque pleasure palace nearly destroyed during the war and then faithfully restored, only to suffer serious damage again when the Elbe flooded in 2002.
From this vantage point we observed the Nazis’ own Kundgebung, but from a distance. Our further progress was blocked by the police. After a few minutes and a sombre playing of Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods, the Nazis began to march. The police again mysteriously disappeared. We made our way towards the group. It was at this point that, if I had had any doubts about how much my companions hated these people, they were quickly dispelled. They all knew a series of chants designed to irritate the Nazis as much as possible, including shouting, in English, “Bomber Harris do it again!”, in reference to the British commander of the RAF bomber force. I followed them up and down the line as they hurled insult after insult at everyone alike. Hundreds of others join in. I just take photographs nearby. Some skinheads notice us while I’m taking a picture of him. One waves at me, then points and alerts his friends. I get stared down by a bunch of them. They might have been trying to remember what I look like so they could find me later on. The police stand in an imposing line between us and the Nazis. They simply look on, some apparently amused, others by no means whatsoever.
Most interesting about this episode was the relative scarcity of skinheads. The demonstrators looked like completely normal people, many of them stylishly dressed teenagers. I even saw a young mother pushing a stroller. Only their banners gave them away. “Dresden: the German Hiroshima.” This particular banner went further: “And the perpetrators keep bombing: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran…” At the head of the column of fluttering, black mourning flags and symbols of the National Democratic Party we find the eye of the storm, a rather well-dressed middle-aged man named Christian Worch. Known as the organizer of the “Free Comradeships” that are the backbone of the neo-Fascist movement, the only thing that would give him away, apart from his presence there, is the throng of rather veteran-looking skinheads that form his inner circle. He listens to what appear to be reports from his top lieutenants, and otherwise watches the scene emotionless. But this moment is a great accomplishment for him. The size and influence of the Comradeships in Saxony helped organize the National Democratic Party’s seizure of twelve seats in the Saxon state parliament in September. They do almost as well in Brandenburg and Saarland, and are expected to make a showing in the upcoming elections in Schleswig-Holstein as well. But that’s all in the future. As for now, Worch and the NPD have organized the largest radical Right demonstration since 1945.
A police officer tells us to scram before it gets “hot.” After all, the Antifa turnout was somewhat disappointing. The Nazis outnumber them at least five to one. We take the officer’s advice, for the moment. Cell phone conversations with other Antifa tell us that we should cross the river to find another open access to the long train of Nazis that has already set into motion. As we cross, we hear loud music echoing through the chasm formed by the Elbe’s wide bed. More Wagner. The Flight of the Valkyries. Slightly eerie. We can see that the procession of Nazis already stretches across a good slice of western Dresden and all the way across one of the long river bridges to the New City in the North. When we arrive there, we find the police already waiting for us. We can’t even get within a half-mile of the march. This doesn’t stop throngs of people from lining up in front of the police and singing their insulting songs at the Nazis who probably can’t even hear them over their own blasting loud Germanic music. The police charge the crowd, it disperses like a flock of birds. Then back again. Another charge, really just bluster. I find myself running several times. At one point, the police charge breaks a raucous chorus of “You lost the war, you lost the war.” I run, only to hear the song break out again while I still think I’m being chased. These people are relentless. They run right back to where they were before, singing again without missing a beat. My compatriots decide it would be best to cross the river again and find a place to shout at the Nazis as they cross the river again.
Back in the old city again, we find ourselves in front of the rebuilt Frauenkirche. Thousands of older people are gathered there, some with candles, some praying. As we come near the crowd, several police approach us and announce that we are being searched. Terror seizes me. I have a rather large Swiss Army knife in my pocket. I forgot I had it. I don’t know whether they’ll take it away or arrest me. Just as they start to search me, their radios all start to buzz. They immediately bolt into the crowd. Less than a minute later, they re-emerge, indelicately dragging with them four leftist demonstrators. One of them has a banner reading “No Tears for Krauts.” Even the girl among them is not spared the rough handling. A female officer drags her out of the crowd in a headlock. One guy gets his face ground into the cobblestone by two large policemen. One of them grunts at the kid: “No placards!” One of my friends, Robert, calls to them: “Name! Name!” The suspects call out their names. Robert gets on the phone immediately, calling “Red Help,” which provides legal assistance for demonstrators who get mishandled by the police. A policeman sees us there. “You’re still here? Raus! You look left-wing.” We start walking.
We come across the Elbufer just in time to find the end of the Nazi procession crossing back to their starting point. Hundreds of people are standing on the stairs, shouting at them. The British and American flags appear again. So do the slogans. Bomber Harris, do it again. The Nazis hold their ending speech. They say there were 8000 of them. I think there might have been between six and seven. The city itself later said five, only three of which marched, but they have as much reason to downplay the number as the Nazis do to exaggerate it. In any case, this demonstration, especially in relatively democratically inexperienced East Germany, is not a good sign.
On our way out we start hearing random reports of Nazis on the hunt for their erstwhile hecklers after the rally disperses. I never saw it myself, and had an instinct to doubt it for some reason, but everyone told me it’s not uncommon. We begin walking, and encounter an equally large demonstration, this one against the radical Right. We decide to merge with it just to be safe. It’s headed for our car, in any case. Along the route, Robert sees a Dresdner woman, identifiable by the white rose on her lapel—the acknowledged symbol for peace and tolerance. He asks her, rather confrontationally: “Where were you all day?” “At home,” she says. “There are thousands of Nazis all over this city, why don’t you Dresdners do anything about it?” She doesn’t know anything about any Nazis. She hadn’t heard. Sixty years later and people still think there are no Nazis in their town.
We reach the car, unwilling to risk sticking around. Apparently even more Nazis are out looking for a fight because one of their busses got trashed, and since we apparently look like leftists, my more experienced companions think it’s not a good idea to stay. All that’s left of the day is the candlelight vigils and the church services. By this point, the center of Dresden is filled with families from all over the country. The US Ambassador is there. So is the British, and the Russian. The portion of the event more extensively photographed by the press went off without a hitch, I later heard. On the Altmarkt, Dresdners had laid out a banner on the ground, with a message spelled out in candles. It read “Diese Stadt hat Nazis satt.” This can mean two things. First, it could mean that the city has had enough of Nazis. It could also mean that Dresden is filled with Nazis. I don’t know which is more true.
Anti-Americanism and Historical Memory in Germany
[Originally written February 14, 2005.]
I came to Dresden, about as deep inside the former Communist East Germany as one can go, to see what promised to be a major demonstration. Sunday, February 13th 2005 was the 60th anniversary of the Allied firebombing of the city. Tens of thousands of demonstrators were expected to appear to commemorate one of the most infamous incidents in the history of modern warfare. Others came to protest. Others came to instigate. Others came to forget. In the night of the 13th and in daylight on the 14th, 1945, British and American planes devastated with hundreds of thousands of incendiaries and high-explosive bombs most of Dresden’s historic center, built up over centuries as the capital of the Wettin dynasty’s prosperous joint kingdom, which at its height, in the middle 18th century, included both Saxony and Poland. The city’s baroque Altstadt, renowned at the time for its sprawling beauty, was reduced to a rubble field, thousands upon thousands of its citizens buried and burned alive. So it goes.
It is very often that one hears that the Allied attack on Dresden served no conceivable military purpose. Dresden was by no means one of the Reich’s major industrial centers; most of these were to be found in the Ruhr valley, and already lay in ruins or even under Allied control by the time Dresden burned. Indeed, many later argued, the war was already over in all but name. The Red Army was already at the gates of Dresden, having shortly before occupied nearby Silesia, driving hundreds of thousands of ethnic German refugees before them. It is generally assumed that most of these found their way through Dresden, and many of them were surely among the later dead unearthed in mid-February 1945.
But was Dresden so innocent, a city of no military importance? Dresden did possess a reasonably large industrial base, virtually all of which had been converted for military production and taken over by the German Army by the time of the attack. The city was also a major transportation hub, through which not only despairing refugees but also troops and war materiel en route to the Eastern Front or fleeing from Stalin’s vengeful army would be sure to pass. It goes without saying that such assertions are unpopular in Dresden to this day.
Was the war already over? Scarcely six weeks before the attack, the Western Allies were still reeling from Hitler’s final, Pyrrhic offensive of the war. On December 16th, 1944, massive German armored spearheads had penetrated American lines in the Ardennes forest in central Luxembourg and southern Belgium. The ensuing “Battle of the Bulge” soon became the largest land engagement in the history of the United States, resulting in approximately as many American troops killed and wounded in two weeks as were killed in the entire Vietnam War. Combine this with Stalin’s personal request at Yalta that the Allied air forces be employed as long-range artillery in support of the final stages of the Soviet thrust towards Berlin, and it becomes evident that Dresden’s gruesome fate, according to the amoral logic of total war, was sealed.
To make the past even more difficult to deal with, the Cold War led to the attack becoming a propaganda centrepiece and caused massive fluctuations in the estimates of the dead. The East German government made cynical use of Dresden’s fate, citing the experience as only typical of the tactics of American imperialist warmongers, being repeated with reckless disregard for humanity, above all in the schmutziger Krieg—dirty war—in Vietnam. The blame was placed, at different times, on Truman while he was still President (even though FDR was still alive at the time of the attack), and later on Eisenhower when he became Commander-in-Chief. Within twenty years of the attack, “official” estimates of the body count changed from 25,000, to over 300,000, then back to 35,000, when the Communists decided that they didn’t want to tell their subjects that conventional weapons could kill more than atomic weapons did at Hiroshima. After all, the threat that the American tyrants would start a nuclear war was more important to East German (i.e. Soviet) propaganda.
Whether as a symbol of the American lust for war (despite the fact that the true firestorm itself was unleashed by the Royal Air Force) or as a call for peace, the German Democratic Republic left the ruins of the 18th century Frauenkirche—the Church of Our Lady—in the pile of rubble it collapsed into following the bombing. So it remained from 1945 until after the reunification of Germany. In the past decade, however, as the result of a project costing nearly 60 million Euro, the Church stands again. The cries that Dresden was trying to wipe away its past—not only the Third Reich but also four decades of Socialism—resound to this day. The Frauenkirche itself represents not so much the rebirth of historic Dresden as it does the central question of Germany’s politicized past. Can tears be shed for the women, children, and elderly smashed by the Allies’ response to Germany’s bid for control of Europe without marginalizing the Germans’ own innumerable victims? Even if it can be done, should it?
It was in the cauldron of these deep-seated and divisive questions that I found myself last Sunday. The Dresden Police had announced that they expected 7000 neo-Nazis to appear to mourn the German victims of the “Allied Bomb Holocaust.” Another ten or so thousand would descend on the city, summoned by every major left-wing party of Germany, to protest the radical Right presence. The Dresdners themselves, as well as thousands of others from all over Germany, church leaders, and assorted notables from Germany’s former rival nations would take part in official ceremonies expected to stretch well into the small hours of the 14th. The traditional candlelight vigil in front of the Semper Opera, known for attracting tens of thousands, is planned for after nightfall. Riot police have been brought in from all over Saxony. From the beginning it is clear that the city is essentially under martial law. And then there were the people I came with.
They call themselves “Antifa”—anti-Fascists. Among them are those who take their opposition to the radical Right even further, proudly announcing their identity as “anti-Deutschen.” They are a rather diverse grouping of students and other leftists from all over Germany. Most are under thirty. Because of a sudden and unforeseen illness, my friend in Leipzig is unable to accompany me. As a result, I am with people I have never met, and will probably never see again. So it goes.
Shortly after my arrival in Dresden, I find myself at a Kundgebung—the opening address of a day of counter-protest against the Nazi presence. The central podium is bedecked with messages that one only informed by the American media might hardly expect to find in Europe, especially not in Germany. “Attack the anti-American consensus!” “Solidarity with Israel.”
Among the five or so hundred demonstrators assembled before the new synagogue—the old one was burned by the Dresdners themselves on the Night of Broken Glass in 1938—several flags flutter in the relatively strong wind. The Hammer and Sickle is one of them. So is the battle flag of the Royal Air Force. So is Old Glory. For these people, the Allies were unquestionably liberators, completely righteous and justified in whatever means were necessary to smash Fascism. Someone had explained to me that some German leftists support America and Israel because they believe that anti-Americanism is most often fuelled by anti-Zionism, which is in turn most often only the same old anti-Semitism with a different name. For them, there might have been arguments against Zionism, but Auschwitz proved them all wrong. Never again Germany. No tears for Krauts, they chant, in English.As I listen to a speech about what to do if I get beat up by the police, thinking “What have I got myself into?”, a sudden and furious roar tears through the words coming from the loudspeaker. A pair of skinheads had had the bad luck of finding themselves in the wrong part of town, and while trying to find their own ilk on foot, they happened upon our demonstration. Within seconds, probably a hundred of the more “spirited” among us tore off down the street after the two of them. Within seconds, they disappeared down a side street. A few seconds more and they were joined by a speeding procession of police vans, each filled to bursting with decidedly unhumorous looking armored police. I don’t know what happened. Sirens, phalanxes of riot police running at full sprint and ambulances roaring by proved to be a basic part of Dresden’s atmosphere that chilly afternoon.
Shortly, the voice on the loudspeaker wishes us good luck, and the crowd sets off together. Within five minutes walk we find ourselves on the Altmarkt—the Old Market—, where the SS had burned thousands of bodies in the wake of the 1945 attack. Another roar tears through the crowd. Suddenly I am running, but I don’t know where to. One of my compatriots tells me we should wait where we are. He wants a cheeseburger. He says there will be plenty of action later. He was right.
Within a few minutes, the anti-Fascist mob reappears from a different direction than they had disappeared to. A large white charter bus appears in front of us. “It’s full of Faschos!” my new friend shouts. Another roar. People come running from all directions. Suddenly, trash cans start hurdling through the air, striking the side of the bus and spilling their contents all over the street. The Nazis inside try to remain cool. Some of them can’t, and they start yelling at us through the glass. The glass silently restrains their bullshit. It was at this moment that I looked to my left, where I saw a twentysomething German pull something out of his backpack and unfurl it. He holds the flag of Israel wide across his chest, displaying it to the Nazis in the bus. Then the battle-cry, shouted to the point of straining and soon joined by many nearby. “LANG…LEBE…IS-RA-EL!” Long live Israel. Given the grim historical context, something about what was happening before me—fear, grief, guilt, and hate—is simply impossible to explain. Although I could attempt to impose words on it, I will simply say that I will never forget the way I felt at this moment.
It is not long before the police arrive. They line up in front of the bus. They charge at us, and we take to flight across the Altmarkt. It was only the first such occurrence of the day. Though many of the Antifa later complained that the police spent the entire day protecting the Nazis, it is clear that they were there only to prevent violence of any kind. It is also clear that were they not there in such great numbers there surely would have been violence. Skinheads do not seem to me to be the most likely people to react magnanimously when struck with flying beer bottles and trash.
From there I followed as my compatriots tried to find a way to where the Nazi march would begin. Not that they didn’t know where it was, just that the police proved quite adept at spotting people likely to hurl instigative epithets—or solid objects—at the Nazis. The bizarre, seemingly almost Brownian, fluctuations of police barricades were a constant feature. One might find a way blocked at the first attempt, then hear by word of mouth fifteen minutes later that the "Bullen"—the equivalent of "pigs"—had mysteriously disappeared. We could hear vague, angry-sounding gibberish being shouted over a loudspeaker, but it took us a while to find an open route. We eventually found ourselves on the terrace of the Zwinger, a baroque pleasure palace nearly destroyed during the war and then faithfully restored, only to suffer serious damage again when the Elbe flooded in 2002.
From this vantage point we observed the Nazis’ own Kundgebung, but from a distance. Our further progress was blocked by the police. After a few minutes and a sombre playing of Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods, the Nazis began to march. The police again mysteriously disappeared. We made our way towards the group. It was at this point that, if I had had any doubts about how much my companions hated these people, they were quickly dispelled. They all knew a series of chants designed to irritate the Nazis as much as possible, including shouting, in English, “Bomber Harris do it again!”, in reference to the British commander of the RAF bomber force. I followed them up and down the line as they hurled insult after insult at everyone alike. Hundreds of others join in. I just take photographs nearby. Some skinheads notice us while I’m taking a picture of him. One waves at me, then points and alerts his friends. I get stared down by a bunch of them. They might have been trying to remember what I look like so they could find me later on. The police stand in an imposing line between us and the Nazis. They simply look on, some apparently amused, others by no means whatsoever.
Most interesting about this episode was the relative scarcity of skinheads. The demonstrators looked like completely normal people, many of them stylishly dressed teenagers. I even saw a young mother pushing a stroller. Only their banners gave them away. “Dresden: the German Hiroshima.” This particular banner went further: “And the perpetrators keep bombing: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran…” At the head of the column of fluttering, black mourning flags and symbols of the National Democratic Party we find the eye of the storm, a rather well-dressed middle-aged man named Christian Worch. Known as the organizer of the “Free Comradeships” that are the backbone of the neo-Fascist movement, the only thing that would give him away, apart from his presence there, is the throng of rather veteran-looking skinheads that form his inner circle. He listens to what appear to be reports from his top lieutenants, and otherwise watches the scene emotionless. But this moment is a great accomplishment for him. The size and influence of the Comradeships in Saxony helped organize the National Democratic Party’s seizure of twelve seats in the Saxon state parliament in September. They do almost as well in Brandenburg and Saarland, and are expected to make a showing in the upcoming elections in Schleswig-Holstein as well. But that’s all in the future. As for now, Worch and the NPD have organized the largest radical Right demonstration since 1945.
A police officer tells us to scram before it gets “hot.” After all, the Antifa turnout was somewhat disappointing. The Nazis outnumber them at least five to one. We take the officer’s advice, for the moment. Cell phone conversations with other Antifa tell us that we should cross the river to find another open access to the long train of Nazis that has already set into motion. As we cross, we hear loud music echoing through the chasm formed by the Elbe’s wide bed. More Wagner. The Flight of the Valkyries. Slightly eerie. We can see that the procession of Nazis already stretches across a good slice of western Dresden and all the way across one of the long river bridges to the New City in the North. When we arrive there, we find the police already waiting for us. We can’t even get within a half-mile of the march. This doesn’t stop throngs of people from lining up in front of the police and singing their insulting songs at the Nazis who probably can’t even hear them over their own blasting loud Germanic music. The police charge the crowd, it disperses like a flock of birds. Then back again. Another charge, really just bluster. I find myself running several times. At one point, the police charge breaks a raucous chorus of “You lost the war, you lost the war.” I run, only to hear the song break out again while I still think I’m being chased. These people are relentless. They run right back to where they were before, singing again without missing a beat. My compatriots decide it would be best to cross the river again and find a place to shout at the Nazis as they cross the river again.
Back in the old city again, we find ourselves in front of the rebuilt Frauenkirche. Thousands of older people are gathered there, some with candles, some praying. As we come near the crowd, several police approach us and announce that we are being searched. Terror seizes me. I have a rather large Swiss Army knife in my pocket. I forgot I had it. I don’t know whether they’ll take it away or arrest me. Just as they start to search me, their radios all start to buzz. They immediately bolt into the crowd. Less than a minute later, they re-emerge, indelicately dragging with them four leftist demonstrators. One of them has a banner reading “No Tears for Krauts.” Even the girl among them is not spared the rough handling. A female officer drags her out of the crowd in a headlock. One guy gets his face ground into the cobblestone by two large policemen. One of them grunts at the kid: “No placards!” One of my friends, Robert, calls to them: “Name! Name!” The suspects call out their names. Robert gets on the phone immediately, calling “Red Help,” which provides legal assistance for demonstrators who get mishandled by the police. A policeman sees us there. “You’re still here? Raus! You look left-wing.” We start walking.
We come across the Elbufer just in time to find the end of the Nazi procession crossing back to their starting point. Hundreds of people are standing on the stairs, shouting at them. The British and American flags appear again. So do the slogans. Bomber Harris, do it again. The Nazis hold their ending speech. They say there were 8000 of them. I think there might have been between six and seven. The city itself later said five, only three of which marched, but they have as much reason to downplay the number as the Nazis do to exaggerate it. In any case, this demonstration, especially in relatively democratically inexperienced East Germany, is not a good sign.
On our way out we start hearing random reports of Nazis on the hunt for their erstwhile hecklers after the rally disperses. I never saw it myself, and had an instinct to doubt it for some reason, but everyone told me it’s not uncommon. We begin walking, and encounter an equally large demonstration, this one against the radical Right. We decide to merge with it just to be safe. It’s headed for our car, in any case. Along the route, Robert sees a Dresdner woman, identifiable by the white rose on her lapel—the acknowledged symbol for peace and tolerance. He asks her, rather confrontationally: “Where were you all day?” “At home,” she says. “There are thousands of Nazis all over this city, why don’t you Dresdners do anything about it?” She doesn’t know anything about any Nazis. She hadn’t heard. Sixty years later and people still think there are no Nazis in their town.
We reach the car, unwilling to risk sticking around. Apparently even more Nazis are out looking for a fight because one of their busses got trashed, and since we apparently look like leftists, my more experienced companions think it’s not a good idea to stay. All that’s left of the day is the candlelight vigils and the church services. By this point, the center of Dresden is filled with families from all over the country. The US Ambassador is there. So is the British, and the Russian. The portion of the event more extensively photographed by the press went off without a hitch, I later heard. On the Altmarkt, Dresdners had laid out a banner on the ground, with a message spelled out in candles. It read “Diese Stadt hat Nazis satt.” This can mean two things. First, it could mean that the city has had enough of Nazis. It could also mean that Dresden is filled with Nazis. I don’t know which is more true.
posted by Evan Campbell at 11:21 AM
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